U.S., China Show Plane Videos

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a war of
videos, Beijing is showing its
own tape of U.S. fighter pilots
flying close to Chinese jets,
much as the Pentagon has been using its
video show to portray China as
the aggressor over the South
China Sea.

The Chinese played their video Thursday during the
second day of talks in Beijing on who is to blame for
the April 1 collision of a Navy surveillance plane and a
Chinese fighter jet that was shadowing it. Pentagon
officials dismissed the tape as misleading and
irrelevant.

The Chinese footage, apparently shot last year,
showed U.S. Navy F-14 and F/A-18
fighters near what appeared to be the Chinese
coastline. It seemed to have been shot from the
cockpit of a Chinese plane, and an American pilot can
be seen taking pictures back.

"That showed clearly the F-14 and F/A-18s that were
in the proximity of whatever type of Chinese aircraft it
was - I assume it was a jet - ... and what you saw was
quite a civil distance being maintained," he said.

Quigley said the video was shot in such a way as to
distort the distance between the American and
Chinese planes.

"They were pretty quick with the zoom button on the
video camera, and it brought the aircraft much closer,
but I think the starting point of the video that they
showed indeed showed the U.S. aircraft at what we
would consider a prudent distance from the Chinese
aircraft, and that's all we're asking for in this case is
prudent, non-aggressive, non-threatening flying," he
added.

The Chinese video was released as a counterpoint to
an American video shown at a Pentagon news
conference last week by Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld in which the pilot of a Chinese F-8 fighter is
shown flying outside the wing of an American
turboprop surveillance aircraft off the Chinese coast
earlier this year. Rumsfeld said it proved that Chinese
pilots had been flying dangerously close to American
surveillance aircraft in international airspace even
before the April 1 collision.

"It's dueling videos," said Steven Aftergood, an
intelligence analyst for the private Federation of
American Scientists. "There obviously is a battle of
public perception going on."

In Thursday's talks in Beijing, the Chinese reiterated
their position that the Navy EP-3E Aries II surveillance
plane turned suddenly into the path of their fighter,
causing a collision and sending the fighter plunging
into the sea. The pilot was lost and the Navy plane
was forced to make an emergency landing at China's
Hainan island.

The U.S. negotiators in Beijing presented a written
proposal for permitting a team of U.S. aeronautical
engineers and EP-3E experts to go to Hainan and
inspect the plane in order to determine whether it
makes more sense to repair and fly it out or take it
apart and ship it out, officials said.

China, which has not said it will return the plane, is
expected to answer the U.S. proposal through
diplomatic channels.

At the White House, Bush's national security adviser,
Condoleezza Rice, said the future
of U.S.-China relations will be determined in part by
how the current dispute is resolved.

"Obviously, to have a fruitful and productive
relationship going on with China, it's going to take two
who want a fruitful and productive relationship," Rice
said. "So, how the Chinese continue to describe what
happened, how the Chinese talk about what
happened will matter a lot."

The U.S. side in the Beijing talks also presented a
proposal for ways to ensure that such collisions do not
recur, the officials said. They proposed discussing it at
a meeting of a special U.S.-China military maritime
commission. No date was set but U.S. officials
estimated it would take place in about two weeks.

Also at issue is China's demand that the United States
stop all surveillance flights off its coast.

There have been none since the collision, but the
administration is weighing when to resume the flights.
Quigley declined to discuss the matter. Other officials
speaking on condition of anonymity said the flights
could resume at any time. They said the administration
was considering whether to present a diplomatic note
to Beijing first stressing the need for any intercepting
jets to maintain a safe distance.

The administration is keeping open the option of using
Air Force F-15C fighter jets to escort future
surveillance aircraft off the Chinese coast, but several
officials said they doubted this would be done
because it would escalate tensions. The Air Force has
F-15Cs based at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.

Zhang Yuan Yuan, spokesman at the Chinese
Embassy in Washington, was asked at a news
conference Thursday whether there was a link
between China's decision to hold on to the American
surveillance plane and the impending U.S. decision on
selling advanced weaponry to Taiwan.

"I am not making any connection ... but our position with regard to U.S. arms
sales in Taiwan has been consistent and firm: We are opposed," Zhang said.
He said a sale of third-generation Patriot missiles and other advanced arms
would have a "devastating impact on U.S.-China relations."